The Union government is likely to put its proposal to ease retrenchment norms, by allowing factories with a large workforce to hire and fire without seeking its permission, on the back burner.Several protests staged by central labour unions, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), and the wide spread criticism from Opposition parties because of job losses on account of demonetisation and the goods and services tax (GST) might have put the contentious labour reform proposals in the slow lane, government officials said. “We are likely to maintain the status quo on the controversial labour law proposals, as trade unions are hell bent that the retrenchment norms should not be touched.The government may also not be willing to take a political risk, especially after it has come under attack of the Opposition parties on demonetisation and the GST,” said a…

Fine on discoms for outages The government plans to fine distribution companies (discoms) from April 2019 for power outages deemed avoidable and will push for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of electricity subsidy, as with cooking gas, in the statesDBT would, Power Minister RKSingh said on Thursday, make for a more competitive sector, besides helping to controlarise in supply rates.

Centre will move an amendment to the Electricity Act for making power supply and DBT a legal obligation.DBT in power was introduced by Bihar this year, while raising tariffs by 25 per cent across all slabs.DBT introduced subsidy for some poorer sections and farmers.

The central government launcheda Rs 16,000crore project in September to provide the rural population with power by the end of 2018.Most of the states, said Singh, have also agreed on 24x7 power for all, 90 per cent prepaid meters, and to make it mandatory for the firms to install prepaid or smart meters to prevent electricity theft.

Government to extend Aadhaar linking deadline to March 31 Apex Court to hear plea next week The Supreme Court will next week hear a plea seeking interim relief in the Aadhaar case while the top court decides the legality of the government's ambitious flagship programme to assign every citizen a unique identity number, after the government said it would only extend a deadline for getting Aadhaar and seeding it to various social security benefits from December 31, 2017, to March 31, 2018. A three-judge bench, led by chief justice of India Dipak Misra, agreed to hear the plea next week, the last working week of the court before it breaks for its winter recess. This despite an assurance held out by Attorney General KK Venugopal that the central government would issue a notification later in the day extending the deadline for 131 services till March 31, 2018. "The government will issue a notification today extending the deadline for 131services," the AG said, without specifying …

RBI should ensure fair MDR share ePayment companies While the Reserve Bank of India’s latest guidelines on merchant discount rates (MDR) have brought some respite to the digital payments industry, many payment executives ET spoke to feel that the central bank needs to ensure equitable distribution of MDR between the various participants of digital transactions. MDR is the amount paid by a merchant for a digital transaction and it is shared by multiple parties - the bank which issues the card, the acquiring bank which onboards the merchant, the network companies who process the transactions and the players who deploy the payment solution. As of now, the share of MDR is higher for the issuing entity while the acquiring company gets a much smaller share. Further, with the new rates from the regulator, payment companies fear their margins could be under further stress. While the maximum cap on MDR has been decided by theRBI, what needs to be done is that the ratio of split between the acquiri…

Complications in GST anti profiteering rules The official form for making complaints under the antiprofiteering mechanism in the goods and services tax (GST) regime defeats the purpose —to help consumers get the full benefit of tax cuts and input tax credits.The form, APAF1, requires a consumer to file in detail the cost structure of the company against which a complaint is made for profiteering Also, details on sale price, taxes, both preGST and postGST, benefits of input tax credits, etc.Rajeev Dimri, partner with consultancy Deloitte India, asked how consumers could be expected to know all these details, particularly of cost structures, when even many insiders in such a company wouldn´t be aware of these Abhishek Jain, tax partner with EY India, said it also appeared that a separate application might be needed for each good or service in reference to which antiprofiteering is alleged.Pratik Jain of consultancy PwC India agreed the level of information asked for in the antiprofiteering…